In the back of my mind when I started The Invisible Event was the idea that exactly half of what I’d post about would feature impossible crimes, locked room mysteries, and/or miracle problems — and although this proportion started an irreversible slide after the first 500 or so posts, the impossible crime remains my first love.
Continue readingAgatha Christie
Spoiler Warning – Mrs. McGinty’s Dead (1952) by Agatha Christie
One final dive into the crystal-clear waters of talking about a mystery novel without having to carefully avoid the details — here are Brad, Moira, and myself discussing Mrs. McGinty’s Dead (1952) by Agatha Christie.
Continue reading#971: (Spooky) Little Fictions – Ghosts from the Library [ss] (2022) ed. Tony Medawar
With the annual Bodies from the Library collections, which have brought long out-of-print stories of crime and detection back to public awareness, proving rightly popular, editor Tony Medawar turns his attention to another facet of genre fiction with the Ghosts from the Library (2022) collection, in which authors (mostly) better known for their stories of crime and detection have a go at generating some supernatural chills instead.
Continue readingSpoiler Warning – Towards Zero (1944) by Agatha Christie
Hopefully your summer heatwave — or winter freeze-wave — has passed and you’re calm, relaxed, and ready to listen to Brad, Moira, and me discuss some Agatha Christie in spoiler-filled detail. This time we’re talking about Towards Zero (1944), the fifth and final book to feature Superintendent Battle.
Continue readingSpoiler Warning – Five Little Pigs, a.k.a. Murder in Retrospect (1942) by Agatha Christie
A long weekend (probably) awaits, so how better to pass some time than listening to Brad, Moira, and me discuss Five Little Pigs, a.k.a. Murder in Retrospect (1942) by Agatha Christie? Okay, sure, there are countless better ways to pass the time, but here’s that discussion anyway.
Continue reading#892: “He happens to be around when so many murders crop up…” – Bodies from the Library 2 [ss] (2019) ed. Tony Medawar
With the Bodies from the Library 5 (2022) collection due in a couple of months, and spin-off Ghosts from the Library (2022) coming later in the year, the time seems ripe to revisit one of the earlier collections which — given the timespan over which I first read them — I failed to review on publication. And since, for reasons too complicated to bore you with here, the second volume was the first one I encountered, it’s there I’ll head today.
Continue readingIn GAD We Trust – Episode 29: Writing The Red Death Murders (2022)
All good things come to an end, and so does my podcast; started in the first UK lockdown and hard to justify now that lockdowns are well and truly over, In GAD We Trust’s 30th episode (number 29, but don’t forget that bonus run through the Jonathan Creek canon) is going out in a blaze of self-promotion.
Continue readingIn GAD We Trust – Episode 28: Writing Mysteries for Younger Readers [w’ M.G. Leonard and Sam Sedgman]
There is a Golden Age of detective fiction going on at the very moment, but because most of what’s being written is aimed at 8-to-12 year-olds, it gets overlooked by, like, grown-ups. I’m trying to raise awareness of this with my frequent Minor Felonies posts, and it’s partly in pursuit of this aim that I’m delighted to welcome M.G. Leonard and Sam Sedgman — authors of the excellent Adventures on Trains series — to my nerdy detective fiction podcast, In GAD We Trust.
Continue reading#868: Spoiler Warning – Coming in April, July, and October…
In January, alongside the spoiler-heavy podcast discussion of After the Funeral (1953) by Agatha Christie, I put up a poll for you, the readers/listeners, to select the Christie novels that would be the subject of future spoiler-heavy discussion. Today, we learn the results of that poll.
Continue readingSpoiler Warning – After the Funeral, a.k.a. Funerals Are Fatal (1953) by Agatha Christie + Vote for Future Episodes
Slightly later than planned — er, sorry about that — let’s see what Brad, Moira, and I made of Dame Agatha’s After the Funeral, a.k.a. Funerals Are Fatal (1953), shall we?
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